Someone I Used to Know

by Patty Blount

  I laugh, too. “That’s an oxymoron, no?”

  Shrugging, he says, “Maybe. Never could keep those lit terms straight.”

  That makes me wonder about him. “You’re not a student?”

  “No,” he admits. “I graduated a few years ago. Degree in engineering. I work in the city now.”

  Manhattan, he means. We’re on Long Island. It took me a few days to figure out that whenever anybody refers to the city, they mean Manhattan.

  “So what are you doing here?”

  He sighs and looks back to the quad where Perky Girl’s got another pair of guys on the hook for rally duty. “Over there. Under the Rock Stock tent. Black boots.”

  I scan the area, find the tent, and see a bunch of people under it. But the black boots do it for me. The girl is hot, like off-the-charts hot. Long wild hair, dark sunglasses, jeans, and a black shirt that’s held together with a series of metal rings. She looks like the lead singer from some hard rock band.

  “Oh, shit. I’m sorry. Was she—”

  “Yeah. Back in high school. By my friend. At a party she only went to because she hoped I’d be there.”

  “Damn.” I sigh.

  “I came over here to talk to you because you looked like—well, like a guy about to puke.”

  My face gets hot. I swallow another gulp of water and look away. But I can’t deny I’m curious. “How do you…” Deal with it? Avoid killing the guy who did it? I wave my hand, trying to fill in that blank.

  He angles his head, studying me. “Get over my guilt?”

  Okay. That works, too.

  He takes another look at the girl in the black boots and shrugs. “Still working on it. Being here is part of it. She’s doing the keynote speech at the rally. Took me a while, but I finally figured out that therapy’s not so bad, either.”

  My parents wanted us all to go to therapy, but I said no way. Maybe that was a mistake. “Can I ask you something?”

  The guy nods.

  I swallow more water. “You ever say something you can’t take back? Something that made her hate you.”

  He grins and rolls his eyes. “God, yes. I can’t watch a Star Wars movie without wanting to kick my own ass.”

  “Huh?”

  He waves a hand. “Long story. I was a real dick to her, embarrassing her in front of my friends so they wouldn’t turn on me. She forgave me. Somewhere along the line, I figured out how to forgive myself so I could be the man she deserves.”

  Forgive myself. That’s exactly what Brittany said. I consider that for a couple of minutes and then shake my head. “I gotta go.” I stand up. “Thanks for the water and for—” I wave a hand. “You know.”

  “Yeah. No problem. Hope we see you at the rally. Trust me, she’s something.” He jerks a thumb toward the girl in the black boots, and I don’t doubt him for a second.

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  He extends a hand. “Ian.”

  I shake it. “Derek,” I say. “Thanks again.”

  “Here.” He fishes through his pockets and comes out with a business card. “My cell number. I can help. If you want.”

  I take off, tucking the card into my pocket along with the blue-and-white flyer. I don’t even know why I’m keeping them. It’s not like there’s any way Ashley’s gonna forgive me. I’m not even sure I can forgive myself. I’ll never be Leonardo again in her eyes.

  TEN YEARS AGO

  BELLFORD, OHIO

  It’s a blistering hot day, and Ashley whines enough to get Mom to take us to the playground so we can run under the sprinkler. Being playground experts like we are, we know you don’t wear shorts to the playground or you’ll fry on every piece of equipment. So Justin, Ashley, and I wear long pants and pretty much own the tall slide, the one all the big kids use.

  Everybody else has red welts on their legs.

  Then Justin has this bright idea. Spread our towels on the hot surface and use them to ride down the slides. Works like a charm. Instantly, kids crying over the slide have a second chance at fun.

  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles towels.

  Justin has Raphael. I have Donatello, and Ashley has Leonardo.

  What do we care about sharing the towels? We can ride all day with no problems because we have long pants. So we play, make new friends, and have a great time.

  The sprinklers are turned on about two hours after we arrive. A squeal goes up, and everybody vacates whatever apparatus they’re using to converge on the water fountain in the center of the park. We get soaked, and who cares? It’s a hot day, and we have fresh clothes to put on later. Mom calls us over to eat our lunch, and then we go back for more fun in the water. When it’s time to change our clothes, the three of us exchange horrified glances. Mom packed shorts for us, not long pants. With heavy hearts, we figure our day of playground fun is over.

  And then we remember our Ninja Turtles towels. I grab mine, Justin finds his, but when Ashley asks for hers, the kid who’d just slid down the slide with it pushes her down and says it’s his. Justin just stands there while Ashley cries, but me?

  I lose my mind.

  This is my sister. She’s hurt and crying, and I’m supposed to just accept that, to shrug that off?

  Hell no.

  I tackle the kid, and while he’s down, I get back her towel. With apologies to his pissed-off mother, who’s trying to blot up all the blood from the fat lip I’d given the little jerk, Mom hustles us all out of the playground and back home.

  Everybody is super quiet on the car ride.

  “Go to your rooms. Now.” Mom points up the stairs the second we get home.

  “Sorry, Mom,” I say with the smile I patented when I was in diapers. I escaped from tons of trouble with it. It never fails.

  Until now.

  Oh, man. This is worse than I thought. It means Mom doesn’t know what to do with me so Dad will take care of it when he gets home. Ashley and I meet in the bathroom that connects our rooms.

  “Thank you for getting my towel back from that mean boy,” she says, looking up at me with her brown eyes wide and full of admiration.

  I squirm and feel the heat climbing up my face. It feels…I don’t know…kind of nice to know I impressed her. “No problem.” I shrug.

  “If Daddy takes away your video games, you can play mine,” she promises me.

  I smile. “They’re the same games, dopey.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well, if Daddy sends you away, I’ll sneak into your suitcase and go with you so you won’t be all alone.”

  “He won’t send me away.” I laugh, but what do I know? I’m eight years old. I’ve never been in this much trouble before, so I really don’t know what the consequence will be.

  We whisper back and forth, and then Justin opens the door.

  “You guys, we’re supposed to be in our rooms.” Justin’s twelve. Double digits. Way cool. And he knows a ton of stuff. So when he reminds us we’re supposed to be in our rooms, Ashley and I both hang our heads.

  “It was a really fun day.”

  Justin’s tone makes me take a close look at him. I don’t know a lot about tones, but I can tell he’s mad. It’s like an accusation. It was a really fun day—until you ruined it.

  At first, I’m kind of embarrassed. Justin’s so smart, it’s like he’s practically an adult. But not this time. Not today. I whip around and push him.

  “You’re the oldest!” I shout at him. “You just stood there and did nothing.”

  Ashley’s lower lip juts out. “Derek saved me. Derek’s my Leo.”

  I roll my eyes even though her words make me stand up tall. “It’s Leonardo, dopey.”

  “I know. He’s my favorite.”

  “Good. ’Cause Leonardo would never let April down.”

  Ashley smiles up at me like I just handed her a puppy
or a kitten, or hell, maybe even an entire unicorn.

  Justin blinks a few times, eyes watering behind his glasses. Justin’s not into sibling loyalty the way me and Ashley are. He does his own thing, and we do ours. But this is the first time I’ve ever called him out on it. He turns and leaves us in the bathroom to wait for Dad to come home.

  And when Dad does come home, I get grounded for ages, but I don’t mind much.

  Because from now on, it’s me and Ashley—Leo and April—against the world.

  NOW

  LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

  The next night, I find myself in front of the room where the Guys Against Rape meeting is about to start, with no idea what the hell I’m doing here. I mean, GAR. Really? It feels wrong to make something so serious into a joke. GARRRRR.

  The meeting is happening inside the basement of the student activities building. The SAB—as it’s known to students—houses lounges, computer corrals, a market, and Rockets gear shop, plus a number of rooms for lectures and meetings, like the one I’m currently standing in front of.

  I hover, ready to turn and take off, when I’m spotted.

  “Hey, come on in. This is the GAR meeting.” A tall balding man smiles at me. He’s wearing cargo shorts and a golf shirt and reminds me of a teacher I had back in Ohio. “What’s your name?”

  “Derek Lawrence.”

  “Grab a seat.” He hands me a stack of papers and, yep, another rally flyer.

  I swallow back the groan, take the papers, find a seat in a comfy-looking leather chair near a window, and eyeball the rest of the room. Besides the bald guy, there are exactly six of us in this room.

  Six guys against rape.

  Six, in a university where twenty thousand are enrolled.

  I pop my neck to the side, listen to it crack, and begin skimming the papers.

  “Problem?”

  I look up and find the leader looking at me.

  “Who, me? No. No problem.”

  “It’s okay, Derek. You can be honest here. You looked pretty disgusted a minute ago. Would you share what you were thinking?”

  I scan the room, find all eyes pinned to me, and squirm. “Uh. Well. I was just thinking that there’s only six of us here tonight. In a school this big, only six of us give a shit.”

  “And how does that make you feel?”

  I think about that for a second and shrug. He asked, so I’ll tell him. “Pissed off, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Good!” The leader pumps a fist in the air. “You should be pissed off by that. Six guys at a university this large? That’s pathetic. Thanks for sharing, Derek.”

  Yeah. No problem.

  “I’m Ted Vega.” The bald guy smiles for a minute and then gets serious. “Derek touched on something that’s actually the cornerstone to GAR’s mission, but before we get to that, I’d like to tell you why I’m here. Then I’d like us to go around the room, and if you’re comfortable, share why each of you is here, too.”

  Great. I sink a little lower into my chair.

  “When I was twenty-six years old, I was a strong guy. I’d just gotten out of the service…army airborne,” he adds with a grin. “I could bench-press my own weight and often lifted more just to say I could.” His smile slides off his face. “I was the strongest guy I knew, and even I wasn’t able to save my wife. She killed herself about seven months after she was raped.”

  The breath stops in my lungs.

  “I’m here because I spent way too many years blaming myself for what happened to Eileen. I didn’t know I needed help or how to find it, so I turned to alcohol instead. I screwed up what was left of my life because I didn’t know I needed help to help her.” Ted looks down at his hands. They’re clenched into tight fists.

  A moment later, I notice mine are, too.

  “Who else is here because your wife or girlfriend or partner was assaulted?”

  Two of the other guys raise their hands.

  “You still together?”

  They exchange a glance, and each shake their heads. Ted sighs. “I’m sorry about that. What are your names?”

  “Gary.”

  “Jack.”

  He nods and turns to the guy sitting near the door, a tall guy with glasses and clothes that don’t fit. “How about you?”

  “Um. My mother…and me.” The kid looks away, and Ted doesn’t press him for more. “Oh. I’m Zane.”

  “Same,” a guy sitting near the window admits, offering half a smile to Zane. “I’m Steve.” He stands up and offers Zane his hand.

  “And you?” Ted asks me.

  “My, um, sister.”

  “Same here,” the last guy says. He’s sitting at the back of the room on a computer stool. “My name’s Phil.”

  Oh, God. Are Phil and I supposed to hug now, bonding over our shared trauma?

  “Okay, gentlemen. Show of hands. The attackers in each of our stories…did you or your girlfriends, mother, or sister—personally know them?”

  I raise my hand. So does everybody else. Holy shit.

  “Take a look at the first sheet in your packets. Studies have shown that rape is more often than not perpetrated by someone known to the victim.”

  The sound of rustling papers scrapes like sandpaper against my eardrums. The first sheet is a list of statistics. Seven out of ten rapes are acquaintance rapes. And 25 percent are committed by someone the victim is seeing—a spouse, a boyfriend, or a girlfriend.

  “And guess where rape is statistically more prevalent?”

  I don’t have to guess. It’s right here on my paper.

  On college campuses.

  College women are twice as likely to be sexually assaulted than robbed. A chill crawls up my back at the next bullet point: the time when college rapes are highest? August through November.

  Football season.

  Ted tosses his paper deck aside. “Okay, look. Your handouts have all the stats you could ever need. There’s also a list of resources where you can get help, and trust me on this, you want it. But right now, I want to tell you what GAR’s mission is.” He stands up, powers on a projector, and grabs a remote control. On the wall is a sentence followed by a question.

  There is strength in numbers. Are you strong enough to speak out?

  “Simply put, our mission is to teach guys that sexualized violence is their problem too. When we get everybody admitting that, owning that, rape crimes will decrease. Part of GAR’s philosophy is social justice and putting our strength behind what’s right.” Ted flexes his biceps. “Let me give you some examples.” He clicks the remote, and the image projected on the wall changes to show a fraternity house with a banner hanging from a window that says, Daughter Drop-Off Point.

  The next image is of a group of guys on a basketball court all staring at a girl walking by. He scrolls through image after image: steel truck nuts, a comedian known for his dirty jokes, ex-politicians and the tweets that cost them their jobs.

  “These don’t look so bad, right? Maybe you think women are overreacting when they talk about stuff like this. But here’s the thing…women keep telling us this crap makes them uncomfortable. And what do we do?” Ted waits a beat. “We ignore them. We tell them to lighten up, accept a compliment, stop making everything about them, and that’s wrong. It is about them. We should be strong enough to be able to back off when women tell us the things we do scare them.”

  Ted wanders around the room, stopping occasionally to make another point.

  “This is rape culture—this tendency for good men, the kind of men who say they’re outraged by rape, to repeatedly ignore and maybe even support the behaviors that excuse rape.” Ted puts down his remote and turns to face us again. “How many of you laughed the last time somebody told a dirty joke?”

  We all nod kind of sheepishly.

  “Or what about t
his scenario? How many of you have ever been out somewhere…a club or a bar or maybe the beach. You’re having a great time, you’re meeting people, and everyone’s getting along. But then one of your crew gets turned down. Friend-zoned. And you, because you’re such a great pal, join in with the rest of your crew telling this girl what a nice guy he is, trying to make her feel bad for exercising her right to say no?”

  Holy shit.

  I’ve done that. I’ve done that a lot.

  “I’m not trying to make you all hate yourselves. That’s not what GAR is about. We’re about change—changing the mind-set, changing the behaviors, thought patterns, responses. Changing the culture.”

  Ted looks at Zane. “Changing the culture is crucial for all of us, not just women. Did you report your assault?”

  Zane shakes his head, and Ted nods.

  “How about you, Steve?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “One in ten sexual assault victims is male, yet studies claim that as many as ninety percent of male victims don’t report the crimes committed against them because of exactly the stigma created by the dirty jokes and song lyrics and attitudes perpetuated by rape culture. Even the legal definition of rape doesn’t always address male victims.”

  I shut my eyes. I remember Carol, the district attorney, repeating that fact. The legal definition of rape is forcible penetration with a penis or implement.

  Ted sits back down in his chair facing us. “We need your strength. We need guys like you to shut down the dirty jokes and tell your friends to stop harassing girls on the street. It’s up to guys like us to show our teammates, our roommates, our friends and family that speaking out against rape and all the stupid little things that trivialize it is cool.”

  Strength in numbers.

  Yeah. Okay. I get it. I take out a pen and sign the pledge form. Then I sit back and listen to everybody share the rest of their stories. Phil’s sister, Steve’s and Zane’s mothers, Jack’s and Gary’s girlfriends…and finally, me. By this time, my stomach is twisting itself inside out, and I want very much to choke somebody or something, but I tell them what happened to Ashley.

  Then Ted powers down the projector and laptop. “Before, when Derek said he was pissed off that only six guys showed up? I have to admit, that pisses me off, too. I’ve been doing these meetings for a long time now, and they always start out like this…with a handful of guys with direct connections to a victim of sexualized violence. Our job is to go out and find the men of character, the men of honor, who are willing to fight with us, to put their strength behind this cause for no other reason except it’s right.”